Game of Thrones: One Word . . . EPIC. (Recap S6: Finale)

This episode of Game of Thrones was like my jeans after Thanksgiving dinner, bursting at the seams with good stuff (and some not so good stuff), but ultimately super satisfying, albeit extremely unhealthy. Long-held theories confirmed? We got that! Awesome deaths and comeuppance for people you hated! Got that too! A death of one person you liked? Yup. Creepy kids. Uh-huh! Little Lyanna Mormont proving she’s cooler than everyone else on the show? Yes sir!

For the last time this season, let’s do this!

[Special thanks to Andre for all the brilliant screencaps he has tirelessly provided throughout the season. If it weren’t for him, these recaps would likely be repeatedly punctuated with nothing more than endless images of my trademark “Surprised Monkey Face.”

Cute, but not always plot-relevant. 🙂

Village of the Damned

We open on Cersei Lannister, getting all dressed up in not-exactly-time-period appropriate tight black leather and sequins, like she’s the torture mistress of some BDSM underground club. This is most certainly NOT a woman heading to a trial that will most definitely end in her execution.

Elsewhere in Kings Landing, the High Sparrow is also getting ready for his big day, by donning . . . the same old ugly t-shirt he’s worn all season, which leads me to wonder a few things: (1) Does the High Sparrow sleep in the buff? (Ew!) Or does he have Superman footie pajamas that he dons at night, after a long hard day of cult leading and brainwashing? (2) Does he have an entire closet filled with old ugly t-shirts that look exactly a like for occasions like these?

Now, alas, we may never know . . .

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. (Almost) everyone heads down to the Sept of Baelor for the trial. Except, Maester Pycelle can’t go, because he’s busy being brutally mutilated by an army of evil six-year olds . . . wait, WHAT?

Apparently, Varys’ Little Birds aren’t just good for collecting and spreading information anymore. They are also good for starring in a potential remake of that movie Village of the Damned from the mid-90’s. All we need is a crap-load of blonde hair dye, and some really cheesy glow-in-the-dark colored contacts.

In case it wasn’t entirely obvious by now that Cersei has given herself over entirely to the dark side, she has to go and turn all of Sesame Street into the cold-hearted killers of various members of her son’s cabinet. Sorry Big Bird!

A second party unable to attend the trial proceedings is King Tommen himself, whose attendance is being bodily prevented by Cersei’s pal, the Mountain for reasons that will soon become clear.

At the Sept, Loras is up for trial first, his hair has been cut for the event, and its a massive improvement over the humid unwashed mass that was weighing down his face before. Not wanting to die, Loras instantly accepts what he sees to be the lesser of two evils, a gnarly forehead tattoo, and a lifetime membership into High Sparrow’s cult of religious nutbars.

“But i always wanted to be in a fraternity!”

Don’t worry, Loras. You won’t have to hang out with these losers for long . . .

Sent by the Sparrow to retrieve a tardy-for-trial Cersei and Tommen, Lancel Lannister also finds himself face-to-face with an evil first grader. Fortunately, for Lancel, this little guy maims but doesn’t murder him. Unfortunately, while lying on the floor immobile, Lancel gets a peek at something green and gooey on the floor near his face. It’s the ooze that made the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Just kidding, it’s something way worse . . .

Back at the Sept, Magaery is the only one smart enough to realize that Cersei’s going to blow the entire Sept and all its inhabitants to smithereens. She attempts to warn the populace and hightail it out of there, but is narrowly prevented from escaping with Loras and her life from the building, because the High Sparrow is a moron.

Two seconds later, we watch as that green goo, explodes Lancel first, then the High Sparrow, and finally everybody in the entire Sept, including everyone from House Tyrell who isn’t Lady Olenna.

RIP Margaery with the good hair, and Loras with the bad hair. Neither of you ever really had a shot at the Iron Throne, but I liked you both lots anyway.

Upon seeing his church explode, and knowing he’s indirectly responsible for the death of his hot wife and countless others, Tommen makes like a bird, and takes a flying leap out of his castle window. But because he’s not Dany “Inflammable Boobies” Targaryen or Arya “Indestructible Ab Muscles” Stark, Tommen hits the ground with a splat, giving a whole new meaning to the term “King’s Landing.”

To add insult to injury, because Tommen is not super sexy like Jon Snow, there will be no secret old ladies like Melissandre to fondle his corpse back to life.

I can’t believe this is the last time I get to use this ridiculous GIF in a recap?!

Sorry Tommen, better luck never! More importantly, though, who is going to take care of the cat now?

Whose Shamed Now, Biatch?

Because being a terrorist in your own kingdom, tainting the minds of tiny tots, and murdering multiple family members is just child’s play for Cersei Lannister, now that she’s suddenly become a comic book villain, she has to go and do some more bad stuff this week. The good news is, this time, no one we actually like, like Margaery Tyrell, is involved, so we can fully enjoy it.

First, Cersei ties Septa Unella, a.k.a The Shame Shame Nun to an operating table and pours buckets of wine on her face, while repeatedly chanting one of the nun’s favorite words. “Confess, Confess,” she says.

Then, Cersei accuses the Septa of enjoying her merciless torture of Cersei, Margaery, Loras and other prisoners of the High Sparrow. Then, the Sole Surviving Lady Lannister basically admits, not only to committing all the crimes of which High Sparrow accused her, but LOVING DOING IT SO VERY MUCH.

Septa Unella thinks Cersei Lannister is about to kill her, just like she’s done to basically everyone else in King’s Landing at this point. But Cersei has more creative plans for Septa Unella . . . plans that involve a lifetime of torture at the hands of the Mountain.

Shame, Shame, we know your name, Septa!

Be A-Frey-ed! Be Very A-Frey-Ed!

Speaking of creative fates, after having Riverrun handed back to him on a platter by Jamie Lannister, that old coot Walder Frey is feeling might proud of himself. In fact, he hasn’t felt this good since the butchering of poor Robb Stark at the Red Wedding. In fact, everything is going perfectly for the head of House Frey . . . except for the fact that his sons are late for dinner, and his pie is tasting mighty funny . . .

Fortunately, a hot waitress is there to ease Walder’s troubles and his tummy. Except . . . that “hot waitress” happens to be Arya Stark, and the pie he’s eating contains the intestines and extremities of the sons of his she just murdered . . . and baked apparently with a nice lightly sugared bread crust (very impressive).

The good news is that Walder Frey won’t have to worry about indigestion anymore. One of the few benefits of getting your head chopped off is that it pretty much makes all other bodily ailments just vanish!

It looks like the Assassin formerly known as No One is All Grown Up! Plus, her List of People to Kill just got a wee bit shorter! Not bad for a day’s work. Arya certainly wasn’t getting benefits like these at Burgerless White Castle!

Welcome to Hogwarts, Samwell Tarley!

As if it couldn’t be any more obvious that Sam Tarley and Gilly are on an entirely different show then everyone else, we get this random scene where Sam arrives at Maester school, only to be greeted by a “delightfully quirky” groundskeeper, who talks in riddles like a character from Alice in Wonderland. Once Sam convinces Mr. Quirky that the former Maester on the Wall, has, in fact, croaked, the latter invites Sam to orgasm over the size of the school’s library.

Sorry Gilly, it looks like you’ve just been replaced as the object of Sam’s sexual desire . . .

Speaking of unceremonious replacements . . .

Jon Snow to Melissandre: “You’re Fired.”

Here’s the thing about burning children alive on a stake, while they are clutching magically indestructible toys, it has consequences . . . even if those consequences arrive a few seasons later than they probably should.

Armed with the knowledge that Melissandre murdered his pal young Shireen, Davos rushes to confront the Red Woman, and begs Jon for leave to execute her, in order to avenge the child’s untimely and horrific death.

Melissandre’s apology for such a horrific act, leaves a bit to be desired. “I, um, made a mistake. Oopsie! My bad!” She says, more or less.

Fortunately, for Melissandre, she did bring Jon Snow back from the dead. So for him to order her death, seems a bit impolite on his part. (Emily Post would most certainly not approve.)

So, Jon basically decides to split the baby, and banish Melissandre from his army. The good news is, this means that Shireen’s death has (sort of?) been avenged.

The bad news is that with no one around to wash his naked body, Jon will have to do it himself. And he might occasionally miss the parts that are super dirty.

. . . about personal hygiene.

The Tower of Joy and Plot Development

Lying in the snow, bored, with nothing to do, Bran Stark decides to pop on the Warg DVR. Fortunately, since there is no longer any Old Dude in the Tree to keep him from watching the good stuff, Bran heads right to the Tower of Joy episode, where a Young Ned Stark has been patiently waiting for months to finally climb that tower and rescue his sister, Lyanna from the “Evil” Targaryens.

The problem is that Ned is too late. (That’s what happens when you wait for months to climb a few steps.) Lyanna has just given birth, and is on the verge of death, as a result of doing so. She just has one dying wish for Ned: that he finally confirm for fans the theory they’ve been positing for five seasons now . . . that Jon Snow is not the love child of Ned Stark and “some random lady,” as previously thought. Rather, Jon is the secret son of Lyanna Stark and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen. Not only does that make Jon not a bastard, it also gives him a more legitimate claim to the Iron Throne than practically anyone else living on the show. So, how do you like them apples?

See? He was super broody, even back then!

Jon Snow: King of the North; Lyanna Mormont: Queen of Awesome

Ironically, news of Jon Snow’s legitimacy arrives precisely at the time when such technicalities of lineage may no longer be necessary. Following his success in the battle with the Boltons, the ever humble Jon Snow is more than willing to give the title of Ruler of the North to his legitimate half sibling Sansa Stark, whose alliance with that slippery snake Littlefinger ultimately helped Jon’s army to win what would otherwise be a losing battle against a stronger, admittedly better prepared, army. But little Lyanna Mormont has other ideas . . .

With the authority and confidence of a woman four times her age, Lyanna Mormont calls out the families who refused to aid Jon Stark in his hour of need, some of whom even fought alongside Ramsey Bolton against the Starks. She gamely shames each of these families for their cowardice, and ends her speech with a rousing nomination of Jon Stark as King of the North, a nomination that is immediately echoed by everybody else in the room, former friends and foes alike.

The only person who seems less than thrilled with this turn of events is Littlefinger, who seemed pretty certain that his rallying of the Knights of the Vale would end in Sansa taking the position of Queen of the North. And this, as he mentioned to Sansa earlier, was part of his long-con game plan to take over Westeros himself, with Sansa as his wife and Queen.

Initially, Sansa rejects Littlefinger’s kind of slimy proposal. But the two share a meaningful look at one another, just as the rest of the room is chanting for Jon Snow to pick up the banner as King of the North. Did those Little Fingers get inside Sansa’s head?

I guess we won’t truly know until next season . . .

In Which Cersei Lannister Actually Becomes Darth Vader . . .

Speaking of new rulers, with Tommen’s body splattered on King’s Landing, and the entire Tyrell family, along with the High Sparrow, and all of his followers blown to smithereens, Cersei is crowned the Queen of King’s Landing. Even though this woman has been, more or less, running things in Kings Landing since the beginning of the show, now it’s official.

And that’s SUPER bad news for the rest of Kings Landing. As if it wasn’t obvious enough, the producers of the show play music that sounds suspiciously like the Darth Vader theme song, as Cersei, clad in all black, stomps up to the Iron Throne and accepts her crown. Even a recently returned Jamie Lannister looks at his sister and former lover with a newfound fear and disgust.

Fortunately, there is still hope for better Westeros, and oddly enough, that hope comes from Boring Dorne, where the murderous Martells have invited an understandably skeptical Lady Olenna to join their pact of vengeance, along with another familiar ally, Varys.

With the Martells uniting with the Tyrells, the Targaryens and the Greyjoys to take down Darth Lannister, I may be forced to change my opinion on Dorne and its annoying inhabitants.

Maybe . . . but probably not.

Break-ups, Pin-ups and World War Shake-ups

Speaking of the Targaryens, back in Mereen, Dany is giving her beau Daario the “it’s not you, it’s me” talk, as she basically dumps him, by sentencing him to remain in Mereen as a babysitter, while she heads off to conquer Westeros with a massive army and her dragons. Dany claims this is because she will likely have to marry the head of a powerful family, in order to gain enough manpower and support to claim the Iron Throne, and she cant’ have her sexy lover boy by her side, when she does this. But we all know the real reason is that she’s “just not that into him.”

Daario, sorry you are now heartbroken. Glad you are now single!

Because, honestly, who thinks Dany is actually going to have to marry someone to gain control of their army? if she meets with any male resistance along the way, she’ll just do what she always does: threaten to burn up her “suitor’s” entire kingdom with her fire breathing dragons, if they don’t offer their full loyalty and support.

“Eat your heart out, boys! No, seriously, do it, now, while I watch.”

Daario may have been left without a rose in this very special elimination ceremony of Bachelorette: Mother of Dragon’s Edition. But Tyrion is totally in it for the long haul. And to prove it, Dany has given him a rather ugly pin with a hand on it, thereby bestowing upon him with the official title of “Hand of the Queen.”

I guess this means she forgives Tyrion for getting drunk with Greyworm and Missandrei and totally screwing up everything Dany built in Mereen, a few episodes back.

The final scene of the season, shows Dany heading up an insanely large fleet of ships with Tyrion, her dragons, Missandrei, Greyworm, and Varys by her side (Varys, seriously? Wasn’t he just in Dorne, literally two seconds ago? Are eunuchs given teleportation skills as a consolation prize for no longer having balls?)

Be prepared, Darth Lannister, because the Mother of Dragons is coming for you, and she is bringing friends!

Until next season, Westeros!

Buy my book, please? (It’s only a $1. And you’ll have time to read it, now that GOT is on hiatus!)